Food is often seen as more than just something to eat. It's also a
way to connect families and communities. Festival foods excel at this because
of the celebratory atmosphere that surrounds the festivals themselves. From the
Mac and Cheese Festival to Fried Chicken Fest, there have been festivals to celebrate just about everything here in New Orleans. A local campaign started
by Creole Cuisine
Restaurant Concepts plans to bring an added level of safety to the New
Orleans festival scene, as well as supporting musicians from the city. In addition
to the campaign, Creole Cuisine is pairing with United Way on the Hospitality
Cares Pandemic Relief Fund to create a feeding program for individuals with
critical food needs in a seven-parish area.
Over the past six months,
Louisiana's artistic communities have been severely impacted by the limitations
put in place to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. With bars closed and many
music venues on the downward spiral, the musicians who populate New Orleans are
left with nowhere to perform and little access to money. Therefore, Creole
Cuisine decided to continue their efforts to help the community, following their
Build a Poor Boy + Feed A Community campaign that went through June 30. The
company donated a dollar to the Second Harvest Food Bank for every po-boy sold.
This time around, Broussard's
Restaurant and Courtyard, Tommy's
Cuisine, and several other Creole Cuisine restaurants will be serving festival-inspired dishes and
donating a portion of those proceeds to the New
Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation's Music Relief Fund. Each restaurant
participating will be serving different festival dishes, such as Gulf fish
beignets, burnt ends-pork mac and cheese, and chicken parm bites. The campaign
will be active during all of September for the community to enjoy.
Creole Cuisine will also be hosting
a social media giveaway that coincides with the campaign, to give participants
a chance to win prizes from different festivals.
In addition, Creole Cuisine is also helping out with the Hospitality Cares program that assists hospitality workers in
New Orleans who have critical food needs. This includes people who work
in bars, hotels, and other hospitality industries that were impacted by the
COVID-19 shutdowns. The first disbursement of meals took place on September 2,
with 1000 meals given out. Food scarcity has become an even bigger
problem in the United States since the pandemic has severely impacted the
ability to work for millions of people. According to an article on TheLensNola.org,
one in four households in Orleans Parish is food insecure. The pandemic has
made it even harder to get jobs, which means that more people are without jobs
and increasing these statistics. Over the course of the next two months, there
will be two more food distributions, with the next being on September 30 and the
last on October 28.
Finally, in 2021, the Creole Cuisine Cares
campaign will begin to concentrate on school-age children with little or no
access to regular meals during the summer break. Many children do not have
regular meals due to socioeconomic issues that their parents or guardians face,
but with the pandemic keeping children out of school for longer periods, they
can no longer rely on the lunches that schools would normally provide them, and
they need help.
Creole Cuisine's effort to give
back to the community in these times is admirable. Food is a way to bring
people together, and with the festival food and meals being given to
hospitality workers, they are starting a path towards bettering New Orleans as
whole. Access to festival food--beyond the festival--has proven to be a good way to boost the
community's involvement while keeping everyone safe. The French Quarter's
restaurant scene will be busy with this opportunity to give back to our
musicians who play the soundtrack of the city.
For more information on the event, please visit Creolecuisine.com/ccrc-festival-eats
Tommy's Cuisine, 746 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 581-1103, Tommyscuisine.com
Broussard's Restaurant and Courtyard, 819 Conti St., (504)
581-3866, Broussards.com
